New Year, New Project

I'm really good at starting resolutions in January.  Finishing them is another thing.  So, I can not promise to blog every week.  But I will try.

While preparing for food shopping last Saturday, I noticed how large my folder of recipes to try someday had become.  Well, someday has arrived.  

One of my 2021 resolutions is to try one of these recipes that I have collected over the last 13+ years of marriage.  The recipe will be prepared and then analysed on ease of making, taste, and how the adults and kids like it.  (Because we all know kids and grown-ups have different taste buds.)

I'm not looking for new recipes.  Trust me, I have more than enough for this year and more.  If you'd like a copy of a recipe, let me know.

Thank you to my dear friend Lisa for this cute apron for Christmas!

Next Round Finished...Finally

Thanks to my son for holding so still so I could take the picture.

Who was so crazy as to sign up to complete an entire quilt in 6 weeks?  Oh, that's right--me.  So, that didn't happen.  But I'm not giving up.

Life may have been crazy overly exhausting for the last month, but I've finally completed the "baby section" of my Starstruck Quilt.  My favorite part of this round is the small gray "tulips" as my 4 year old calls them, or "cats" as my 2 year old calls them.

On a silly note, after 10 years, I truly made my craft room into a craft room...by dropping all my pins on the floor!  Thank Heavens, I only have a handful of pins at this time.  Still, I wouldn't go in there barefoot for awhile.

This month has been crazy, and finding moments to work on my quilt has been difficult.  But I'm happy with the progress and look forward to starting the next round of my quilt.  That is right after I'm done baking rolls, making jigglers, and winning our family's "key lime pie" bake off today.  ;)

Being Kind to Myself. It's Harder Than I Think It Should Be

 After the Fall General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I felt like one of the messages for me was to be kinder to myself.  I know that what I think I should do and what I actually can do are not always the same...so why do I make myself feel guilty when the two don't match?

My "craft room" after I cleaned up.  Yikes!

For example, knowing that I was behind on my Quilt Along, I came home ON TIME rather than 2 hours late from school and decided to sit down and work on the wall hanging section of the quilt.  I knew that I should be able to complete the whole thing in 2 hours before I needed to pick up the kiddos from daycare. But then reality hit.  I needed to move the laundry from my craft room (notice I
didn't say fold), find my sewing machine in the storage room, and then locate my scissors, and don't forget to look for the pins that were for some reason up on a book shelf in the living room.  Then I needed to vacuum up that spider, and search for my seam ripper.  And once I got everything together, it was time to pick up the kids.  I just couldn't do what I wanted.  It's wasn't can versus should, it was can't versus should--and it left me feeling awful.

I wish I had a magical story to tell here and how a fairy godmother came and made everything alright and I finished the quilt wall hanging on time, and cooked a gourmet dinner, and had a spotless house, and folded that laundry, and created the perfect lesson plan for the next day.  But that's a lie.

I know that I have a hard time balancing all of the good and better things in my life, and that it's difficult to choose what's best.  Some days I can do it all, some days I feel like I should do it all, and some days I fall apart and cry because none of it happened at all. 

The point of this ramble is that I accomplished something.  And that may not be much to you, but it makes me happy.  It makes me proud.  And I did it just for me.

So, this is me celebrating what I can do.







I can make flying geese using a no waste method.










I can create perfect half-square triangles.










I can learn a new quilt block called the "switch and flip".









I can find time to finish the wall hanging section of my quilt.

I can acknowledge that my family comes first, and my job come shortly after that--but I am important!

I can understand that while I may not be able to grade tests coherently after 10 pm, I apparently have no problem quilting after 10 pm.

I can apologize because I am NOT a social person while quilting.  (Sorry, Nate.)

I can enjoy hot cocoa and quilting at the same time.

I can finish what I started out to do without feeling guilty about the time it took.

I can do hard things.

Happy New Year 2019

Ya, so that whole Instant Pot thing didn't work so well.  Good intentions and all that...

How do you like the new theme of the blog?

I am excited about the new Sunday School curriculum for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints called "Come, Follow Me".  We will be studying the New Testament this year.  There's a ton of ideas that I have...but honestly, I'm not going to blog about them very much, if at all.

This year, my New Year's resolution is to FOLLOW THROUGH and FINISH things.  I've already finished repairing Sammy's pop up book and Carter's beanie babies (things I've put off for weeks and years, respectively).  But the big thing is finishing my master's degree.  My final project is due March 1st.  Wish me luck!

Instagating an Instant Pot

Wife, mother of 4, middle school teacher, graduate student, and somewhere in there is just me, Jen.  On a typical weeknight, I have about an hour to actually decide what I want to fix for dinner, cook it, eat it, and clean up before it's on to homework for kids, bedtime for husband and kids, and homework for me.  Do I really need to state that I don't have a lot of time to cook the way that I dreamed about as a teenager?

I'm always looking  for quick, healthy, recipes that my children will eat and that actually taste good.  My mother gave me an Instant Pot for Christmas, and I'm willing to try it.  But I'm going to need some accountability, or it will end up sitting on a shelf in kitchen waiting for that once-in-awhile recipe (Sunday Roast in a Slow Cooker, for example).  So, I made a Pinterest Board with my sister-in-laws to see what they've tried and get new ideas.  And I'm going to blog once a week about my adventure.  (52 posts instead of 365.  Seems reasonable...right?)

Welcome to 2018.

Blogger now has an i-pad App. Shiny!

Since the beginning of the year, I've been trying to remember all of my resolutions in my head. Silly me! I should know better. I mean I can keep the general ideas going, but the specifics? And then there's the monthly goals, and all the details. Yes, I should know better.

So, here's me doing something about it. I thought about writing down ALL my resolutions, but not only would that bore you...I don't think my house could stand that long without supervision. So, dear readers, you get just the month of February's goals. (Wow! Watching the "Lizzie Bennet Diaries" on YouTube has really influenced my internal dialogue.)

-Simplify My Waistline: Continue January's goal of eating out once a week or LESS, eating LESS school lunch, and drinking MORE water. The new part is to do 30 minutes of exercise RIGHT after school TWICE a week. (No, I'm not shouting at you...the capitalization is for my benefit.) Not the perfect routine yet, but we're doing baby-steps.

-Simplify My Memory: Rather than trying to attack the every going pile and digital files of photographs, how about a plan? Can't believe that it's taken me this long to develop one. During the month of February, I will scrapbook 6 months of Kaylie's life (age 12 months to 18 months). I will spend time early Sunday morning doing this, and late evenings when Nate's working on his schoolwork. (That's much more productive than finding new shows to watch on Netflix...or watching LBD for 6 hours. Bad Jen!)

-Simplify My Saturdays: Haven't figured out practical way to do this yet.

-Simplify My Husband's Waistline: He wants me to wait until he graduates from Grad School in May (Yay!), but I'd like to get started now. Simple change for this month. Place healthy snacks in visible places. Can't begrudge someone eating an apple before dinner.

-*New One* Simplify my house: Once a month I will attack a different room of my house and DI and garbage lots. (Last month, Nate helped me with the Craft Room...I have one now!) This month, I'd like to finish cleaning out the former library. We'd like for the kids to have their own room, but that has meant finding a home for all of our books. Yes, I'm actually going to DI a couple dozen books today. Shocking! I'd like to paint on President's Day, which means that I need to find a comforter, bed, dresser, and curtain fabric(?) for the child we decide to put into this new room. Still haven't decided which one.

-ELIMINATE Debt: We are SOOOOO close. All we have left are student loans. My February goal is to be on top of withdrawing our cash so it doesn't accidentally get spent on other stuff. I will need to do this on pay day exactly, otherwise, life will get in the way.

So, there you have it. February's goals for 2013. Now, it's time to implement.

Jen's New Year's Goals

It's that time again.  I think that I'd like to maintain most of my goals from the past couple of years and only add on a couple.

• Simplify my waistline.  Reach my target weight by June.
• Simplify my Saturdays.  Pick up one room each day.
• Simplify my husband's waistline.  (Cook dinner each night, so he doesn't have to buy lunch the following day.)
• Simplify my school work.  Grade one period per day.

And the new one.

• Simplify my memory.  Scrapbook each Sunday afternoon.  Complete Kaylie's First Year Book, create Carter's First Year Book, update 2nd-5th year book, start Nate & Jen's Years 1-5 book.